Sweep for Terps!

What a huge win for the Terps last night and it was truly a tale of two halves. The first was sloppy and ugly and we couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. But the way they started the 2nd half, in particular Eric Hayes, propelled them to the road win and sweep of FSU this season. Jordan Williams is becoming a man right in front of our eyes, and has been so much better offensively than I could have hoped. Game to game, he’s consistently a top rebounder as well, and he plays fantastic defense. If he sticks around for 4 years he is going to really be something.

Landon Milbourne provided senior leadership (as did GV) when we needed it most, and one of his offensive rebounds within the last few minutes of the game may have sealed the deal. He literally jumped through two FSU players and willed himself to the ball, getting fouled as he caught it. We hit big free throws too, including a couple by Dino Gregory.

At times it was a brutally frustrating game, not as much b/c the Terps played poorly, but the bounces really seemed to go FSU’s way until late in the 2nd half. I can’t recall a game in which there were so many balls that were knocked out of bounds that went in favor of the opposing team. That’s not to suggest there were a bunch of bad calls either, but as a player, I think I would have been terribly frustrated because we played hard the entire game and weren’t really rewarded until the end. If I am reading the box score correctly it indicated that FSU had 9 team rebounds to the Terps 2! That’s a huge difference, but to be able to overcome that speaks volumes about this team’s character. Which is to say, Gary’s character!

Overall though, it was a huge team win and I’m impressed with how they handled a bigger team, again. Sweeping FSU will likely be huge come March as well, since they too will likely be fighting for a bid to the tourney and we pushed ourselves ahead of them in that discussion now. We still have a long way to go to solidify our place in the dance, but this really helps. Gary was noticeably excited at the end of the game, as well he should have been. Now we need to embarrass Carolina on Sunday, and I am hopeful that the snow won’t keep the 18,500 loud Terps fans from continuing Carolina’s fall and making this Roy’s Williams toughest season ever. Poor ol’ Roy! Go Terps!